My first thought was that it's a needle case. I have something similar in wood which dates back to the 1980s or 1990s and would have been bought from one of the many bobbin turners around at the time.
However, mine has a cap with a screw end which goes inside the main part. On close examination of the ebay photo the grooves at each end appear to be parallel decorative grooves rather than spiral threads. Could it be that there were two end caps, which are now missing, which just pushed onto the ends which are slightly tapered? Maybe even thimbles as end caps to stop the contents from falling out. If it was intended as a knife/chopstick rest why bother to make it hollow? and why not have a flat surface somewhere to stop it from rolling around? Brenda On 31 Jan 2014, at 07:56, Jean Nathan wrote: > Another "I don't know what it is so I'll call it a lace bobbin" on Ebay. Brenda in Allhallows www.brendapaternoster.co.uk - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
